


Stuck In The Middle

by dreamchaser31



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, F/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, POV Darcy Lewis, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:15:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24345628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamchaser31/pseuds/dreamchaser31
Summary: Steve's best friends are not exactly best friends with each other. Water and oil just DON'T mix. Chaos commences.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Jane Foster, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 63





	Stuck In The Middle

Darcy danced to the music playing through the kitchen speaker as she finished up dinner. Pandora was playing their pop playlist today and she just couldn't help herself. 

"Let's see," she said. "Steaks are done. Corn, potatoes, the salad, rolls," she paused. "My sanity," she teased and looked at Steve, but Steve wasn't where he had been two minutes earlier, at the breakfast bar, watching her dance. He had said he was watching her to learn how to cook but she knew better. 

With a glance into the livingroom from the open concept kitchen, she could see him pacing, muttering something into his phone, clearly frustrated, if the way he was roughly running his fingers through his short-cropped hair was giving anything away. 

The living room contained a large sectional, and a tv mounted to the wall. There was an ottoman in the middle and an old-fashioned record player by the patio door leading to the patio and hot tub. 

Stark had designed the apartments in the compound very nicely. They were huge. Steve and Darcy though, had asked for the smallest one. Steve didn't want to have to fill it with nonsense. 

A couple of bookshelves here and there. A few plants. A table, because Darcy absolutely refused to serve meals at the breakfast bar, especially since their apartment was where most of their immediate friends/family came for supper and breakfast. 

They had faced the facts long ago. Steve and Darcy were the Avengers den mother and father. And secretly they wouldn't have it any other way. 

Only three things could make Steve that frustrated these days, and she was one of them. So she got into a little trouble with Jane chasing storms for work, sue her! It's not like they hadn't done it a billion times before. 

Tony was next. While their camaraderie wasn't so fragile as what it use to be, the genius-billionaire-reformed playboy-philantropist was still annoying. And _loud._ Apparently when you save the world a few- _dozen_ times, you just have to let everyone know it. 

But since Tony was on vacation with Pepper, Morgan, and their new baby AJ(Anthony Stark Jr. How clever), she guessed that his frustration must be stemming from reason number three. 

Bucky and Sam. 

No amount of time together, or side by side combat, or game nights at their place could relieve the level of dislike between Steve's two favorite brothers-in-arms. 

The two were loyal to a fault. When Steve needed them, they were there without question or comment or reserve. Sam on his six in the sky. Bucky on his six on the ground. 

But once the immediate threat of danger had passed and they were back home, the gloves came off and the fists went flying. 

The two men were so alike it was eerie. But they also had some very different points of view, and that was to be expected. 

Sam grew up in surburban America, with a job denominational Christian family. His father was a weatherman at a local new station and his mother a school secretary. He had a brother and a sister, both younger who both attended college. 

He had joined the military right after high school and was finishing up his master's at NYU in Psychology. His goal being to work veterans with sever PTSD. 

Enter James Buchanan Barnes. Though the only person these days that could get away with calling him 'James', was his fiance, Jane. Calling him anything else but Bucky, could bring out pouty Bucky, and damn if he wasn't sexy when he pouted, but it just broke your damn heart to see him sad. 

Bucky grew up during the depression. Joined the military because he felt it was his duty. Killed some Nazi bastards, was experimented on, fell from a train, spent seventy years after getting his brain fried, and still had the heart to fight for the good of all despite having the best excuse not to. 

And he loved her best friend with the fire of a thousand suns. 

So yeah, you basically have a therapist and a veteran with severe PTSD and are asking them to work out their differences. 

It was like water and oil. 

They just did not mix. 

Steve was the best of both his best friends, and often got stuck in the middle. 

Sam thinks Bucky needs to talk about his issues. And Bucky thinks Sam needs to go to hell. That pretty much sums it up. 

And because they have such conflicting views, chaos commences. 

One time they were sparring, Bucky needed to test out his new gun and Sam his new wings, both courtesy of Tony Stark. The gun was supposed to be empty, he wanted to practice with pellets. And Sam's wings were now razor sharp at the ends .

They had a fight before, and really Steve shouldn't have even let them near the training areas. But as he had stated a thousand times, "They were adults."

"They could put their differences aside for thirty fucking minutes."

"They're fiiiiiiine, Darcy."

Bucky got stabbed in the shoulder. Sam's wings malfunctioned when Bucky place a well-timed bullet in the middle of his pack. 

"He deserved it," they'd said. 

Girlfriend's were called and the boys were pulled to their separate corners. 

"You stabbed him?! He's the best fucking sniper the whole world has ever seen. Why do you have to antagonize him?!" Natasha was steamed. 

"Really, James?" You shot his pack?! You're lucky these mats are ten feet thick! You could of hurt him!" Jane was just as exasperated. 

Steve was irate, and Darcy had to say, "I told you so."

Really all Steve had to do was diffuse the situations when they turned violent. Jane and Natasha had to handle the day to day stuff and it bonded them. They created the "Sisterhood of the adolescent boyfriends." Their meetings sounded like fun, but Darcy wasn't invited. 

She was told it involved a lot of drinking and Bruce played chaperone. 

One time, Sam stuck a piece of gum, or 10, in Bucky's hair while they were working out together. Bucky didn't think anything of it because they were lifting weights together and spotting each other. 

He found out back in his apartment and the whole place went on lockdown. 

Bucky was pissed. Jane was pissed. Hell she was pissed too. Bucky having to cut his hair was a crime against nature, and fashion. 

Bucky responded by finding his girlfriend's Nair sneaking into Sam and Natasha's apartment in the dead of night and replacing Sam's shampoo with it.

Cleaver little shit that he was. 

So Sam went bald. 

Another time Bucky stole Sam's hamburger, right off his plate in front of him. Sam retaliated by spitting him his soda when he wasn't looking. 

Sam wanted the light off during the movie, Bucky left it on. 

Bucky hates peanut butter but loves dessert, Sam brought a peanut butter pie for supper. 

Sam loves Oreos, Bucky replaced all of the Oreos in their apartment with Crest baking soda toothpaste. 

Bucky had his favorite gun, Sam "lost" it for a mission. 

And Steve got notified, every single time because he had asked Friday to keep him informed. 

Natasha and Jane even offered him an informal invitation into the Sisterhood. 

Darcy watched as Steve finished his call. "That was Jane. Bucky was bench pressing, Sam was spotting. The bar slipped and dropped, Sam was on his phone, not paying attention. He took 600 pounds to the chest. Buck's got a cracked sternum. Jane's expecting retaliation. She just wanted me to know."

"Is Bucky alright," she asked. 

"He's ok. He'll be healed in a day. He's pissed the fuck off, that's for damn sure. He was yelling in the background. I don't know Darce. If it weren't for Jane, he probably would of killed Sam outright. Thankfully Bruce was there at the time. And what the hell was Sam thinking."

"Well Bucky is insanely strong. He can bench more than that."

"Doesn't matter. Sam expects Buck to be aware with him. It should be vice versa. At least give him so leverage so the bar doesn't hit so hard."

Darcy sighed and went back to finishing the salad. "Are they still coming tonight?"

"Yeah. I told Jane to get Bucky here, 'whatever it takes.' Same with Natasha. Sam went into Hawkeye's nest. A lot of good that will do," Steve went to the fridge and grabbed a beer that he knew wouldn't help. 

"I love my friends, doll. I'm glad to have 'em. When I met Sam it was like a breath of fresh air. When I lost Bucky and then found him again. I owe all of who I am today to Bucky. I never asked them to be best friends. They both have their little groups outside of me. Sam and Rhodey are great. Bucky and Tony are chained at the hip, although I have no idea how the hell that happened. I just want them to respect each other, ya know?"

Darcy nodded because she did know. And she knew another thing too. "Steve. If they didn't respect each other they wouldn't be pulling out the stops to one up each other. They just don't like each other and that's it."

"Well they need to stop."

"How? You said so yourself before, they're very different and they can't handle that. And they both don't know where they fit in with you because of it. Like if you can like one, how can you like the other."

"I get it, Darce. I do. But this is stressing me out. And Jane and Natasha do NOT deserve this."

"Jane and Natasha knew what they signed up for when they agreed to go out with them. And they accept them for who they are. Jane said yes to Bucky because who's gone for her. He looks at her like she hung the stars, and he makes her feel like the only girl in the world. Natasha loves Sam because she doesn't have to hide who she is and he doesn't have to pretend to be that badass he likes to be around you.

Thing is. They both see each other in you, I think. Sam sees Bucky is bad ass and skilled and can take more of hit then he can, like you. And Bucky sees that Sam is more like you personally. You and Sam are not wildcards and are never looked at as such. Maybe Bucky use to be that way but he isn't anymore."

"Why won't Bucky talk?"

"I think he does, with Jane. But she says he get nightmares. That girl has missed more work since they've been together than she has her entire life."

"If he's having nightmares, he should talk about it," Steve growled. 

"He will talk when he's ready, Steven Grant Roger's. You and Sam need to remember that the last time someone tried to force him to talk was in Germany, and they activated his programming." 

Steve visibly deflated. "I forgot about that, damnit!" 

"It's because you're more like Sam then you realize. You both want him to talk but you forget that it could be at great cost to him."

"Well damn, Darce. I get it. I do. But he's my best friend."

"These things take time, and patience. My recommendation is to join the Sisterhood. They seem to be doing alright. 

And so he did. The next night after Sam found a wasp nest in his closet courtesy of one Bucky Barnes, Steve found his two best friend's girls at a local bar on tenth. Though he couldn't get drunk, like the ladies did, he did enjoy their tales of misadventures with his best friends. 

"So Sam put a fish in Bucky's boot," Jane was red-faced from laughing so hard. Thank God it was in his closet because it stunk up the whole place!" 

Natasha chimed in "Oh my gosh, I remember that! Sam was emptying baby powder from his gym clothes for like a month!"

A least the guys were courteous enough not to involve the other's girl in their pranks. And for now that would be good enough for Steve. 

_For now..._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really liking the Bucky/Sam rivalry being teased in TFATWS. They are NOT best friends, at least at the beginning. Let me know what you think!


End file.
